


The Season May Pass But the Dream Doesn't Die

by Chash



Series: Holiday Fills 2018 [9]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Tortall fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16908693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Clarke decided she was going to join the Queen's Riders as soon as they were founded, years before she was old enough for it. So she waits, lets her mother teach her how to be a lady, goes to the convent, gives it a real chance.But it's not for her, so at fifteen, she runs away to Corus and never looks back.





	The Season May Pass But the Dream Doesn't Die

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [laughing-under-a-cloudy-sky](http://laughing-under-a-cloudy-sky.tumblr.com/). I did not do a ton of Tortall canon refreshing here so if I messed something up, oops.

The Queen's Riders form when Clarke is ten years old, and when she tells her mother that she's going to join, her mother smiles and says, "We'll see."

It's an answer Abby often gives when Clarke wants something she doesn't want to give her, and Clarke knows what it really means: _You'll change your mind about that_. And she might, of course, but Clarke thinks then--and continues to think, as she gets older--that the Riders really would be the best place for her. At four, she learned about Lady Luna, the first lady knight in the kingdom in a hundred years, and a Gifted one at that, and she thought for a long time that she should be a knight herself, until she started to do some training on her own and realized it wasn't what she was looking for.

The Queen's Riders, though--they sound a good fit. Like her mother, she has the healing Gift, and she's good on a horse, even good with a bow on a horse. And while she thinks she'd make a decent enough lady, could probably manage an estate and raise children, it doesn't feel like the most useful thing she could be doing.

Still, it's worth knowing how to do it, just in case, so when her mother tells her she's going to the convent to learn how to manage her home and her Gift, Clarke agrees, and she doesn't even mind it that much. It's not a perfect fit, by any means--they don't want to teach her as much magic as she'd like likes, and she wants to kiss the other girls more than the sisters would like--but she makes it through a few years there without being told to leave.

So, two days before her fifteenth birthday, she leaves on her own.

She doesn't tell anyone she's going, although she does leave a note. In it, she claims she's needed at home, which she doubts anyone will believe, but at least it both explains her absence and doesn't give them any clue where she's actually going. The letter to her mother she sends once she's already on the road, a longer missive detailing her reasons for leaving the convent and joining the Riders. It is, if she does say so herself, a _good_ letter, logical and measured, and it's possible that if she'd just made the arguments to Abby directly, she would even have agreed. That's what she expects her mother to say, that they should have _talked_ about this, that she would have listened.

That wouldn't have done Clarke much good, though, if she hadn't agreed in the end, and it would have given Abby a chance to stop her. By the time her letter makes it back to her mother, Clarke will already be in Corus, already enlisted in the Queen's Riders, and it won't matter what Abby wants.

Except, of course, that the scribe's second question, after her age, is "And your parents?"

"What about them?"

"Who are they?"

"My father is dead. My mother is Lady Abigail of Griffin's Reach."

"And do you have a letter from her?"

"Do I need one?"

For the first time, the scribe looks up from the scroll he's taking notes on to study her, and Clarke studies him right back. He's only a few years older than she is, she thinks, with inky black hair that curls like smoke and freckles scattered across his cheeks. She doesn't know a lot of boys, just Wells, really, and it's always surprising to remember that they can be as good-looking as girls, in their way.

"I didn't realize I was supposed to have one," she says, careful, and he watches her for another moment before he snorts and shakes his head.

"If they don't know, just tell me. You can join either way, we just need to know what we're dealing with."

If he's lying, then her lying too won't help; as soon as they get in touch with her mother, they'll find out that she never got permission, and the end result will be the same. And the boy looks--well, if he was lying, he probably wouldn't look so amused about it.

"I ran away from the convent and came here," she says. "I sent my mother a letter, so she'll know in a day or so, if she doesn't already."

He nods. "And you're sure that you want to do this?"

"I'm sure."

"Then welcome to the Queen's Riders. If your mother shows up to take you away, you can deal with her."

Abby does exactly that, but Clarke digs her heels in, and at the end of the day, her mother is far too proper to try to drag her kicking and screaming from the city, which means there isn't much she can do. The Commander confirms that Clarke is old enough to join and has every right to do so, and just like that, it's done, and she's a Rider. 

It's not the right time of year to start her actual training, but there's always work to be done, and they find things to keep her busy. She helps the palace healer and the hostlers, getting more familiar with the duties she'll take on once her training starts in earnest, getting to know the castle and the city.

She gets to know Bellamy, too, the boy who took down her information when she enlisted. He's not, as she thought, a scribe, but one of the Riders, injured in the spring and away from his usual group and usual duties, leaving him at loose ends with Clarke.

"You don't look injured," she observes one afternoon, frowning as he hefts a bale of hay onto his shoulders. They're in the stables, working with the new ponies, and it's actually fairly soothing. Clarke likes horses, always has. That was part of the appeal.

He tosses the hay into the loft and shrugs, a little awkward. At seventeen--almost eighteen--he seems like he's still growing into his skin sometimes, like his limbs don't fully trust him. "What's injured supposed to look like?"

She elbows him. "I'm asking what happened."

"I was stupid."

"You? Never?"

"Shut up." He sighs, flexes his hand. "The injury was just an excuse to take me out of the field, a healer could have fixed it pretty quickly. But I made a stupid call, decided to go into a bad situation when my group leader told me not to. We didn't have a good enough healer around, so they sent me back to Corus to recover, and I'm not back on active duty until they come back here."

"Time to think about what you did?"

"Apparently."

"And what are you thinking?"

"That I was stupid." They work in silence for a minute, Clarke hoping he'll tell her more if she doesn't press him, and Bellamy not letting her down. "There was a kid who got taken by bandits. Anya told us to wait, I didn't, I broke my arm. She told me I needed to learn to not--"

He's staring into the middle distance, looking at something Clarke can't see. "To not?" she prompts.

"To not see my sister in every hurt kid. And she was right, I do need to learn that. But I saw a scared girl who needed help, and I didn't think."

"Your sister joined the Shang, right?" Clarke asks, trying to remember what he's told her about his family. Father died when he was young, mother remarried, sister born, sister went to Shang, mother died, Bellamy came to the Riders. Something like that.

"Yeah."

"So she can take care of herself."

He smiles a little. "She always could, yeah. But that never stopped me thinking I needed to."

"Are you getting better?"

"How would I know? I haven't had to worry about any kidnapped girls lately." She smiles, and he does too. "Anya told me I should at least remember to talk to her before I do anything stupid, and I think I can do that."

"Do you like being a Rider?" she asks, curious.

"Yeah. It's a better fit for me than being a soldier, definitely. Smaller groups, less rigid hierarchy, and I like the work more. What about you?" he asks. "Why did you join?"

"I didn't want to marry some noble and manage his estate," she says, truthful, and he laughs.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that either. The Riders should be better."

She smiles. "I hope so."

*

Once training starts, she sees less and less of Bellamy, despite both of their efforts to make time. She's busy with training and meeting the other new recruits, and he's busy with whatever other duties he's given. They have meals together sometimes, but by the time his group is back, they only see each other once a week, at best. When he leaves, he gives her a hug and tells her he'll write, and to her surprise, he really does does. It's slow, especially once she's trained and in the field too, letters difficult to send and receive since they're always on the go. But he's the one she updates when she's assigned to her rider group, the one she tells the first time she fails to heal someone. He hears about the romance with Finn that goes sour and the one with Lexa that ends too soon, she hears about his stopping to think before he rushes into a hostage situation, gets every detail of every encounter he has with his sister. 

For all she doesn't see him for six years, he's still her best friend.

"Six years?" Raven asks, sounding skeptical. "How have you not seen him for six years?"

"Bad luck? We're never in the same place. He was in the Yamani Islands working on the alliance, we were in Sarain--"

Anyone else might let it go, but Raven's too sharp for that. "Yeah, I don't buy it. He's from the eighth, right? A few inches taller than I am, black hair, freckles, stupidly attractive? We were in Corus for Midwinter with them two years ago, how did you not see him?"

Clarke shifts a little, uncomfortable. She'd wanted to see him then, she really had, but her mother had asked her to come home, and she'd been a little relieved to be allowed to. The desire to see him had been at war with the anxiety that it would be uncomfortable, awkward, not the same. They have a good friendship, but it's held together by paper and ink; she barely even remembers what it's like to be in the same space as him.

And now they're both going to be stationed at Corus, working with the new recruits, and that means she'll be seeing him _all the time_.

It's going to be nice, assuming it's not awful.

"I was in Griffin's Reach that midwinter, my mother said if I was close enough to be in Corus I was close enough to visit her."

Raven studies her. "He recommended you for this, right? It was his idea for you to come back to teach the Gifted Riders."

She hasn't been thinking about that either. "Yeah. I knew he was doing it and looking for someone to help out, it wasn't really a surprise when he asked me. I would have been upset if he didn't."

"Just saying, that means he probably wants to see you."

"I know."

"If he's been writing to you for six years, he definitely likes you too."

"I'm not worried about that," she says, which is mostly true. "He's my best friend, of course he likes me."

And of course he does. He knows her better than anyone else in the world, probably, has seen her growing up in the Riders and likes the person she's grown into.

But he hasn't, _seen_ her. When Clarke thinks of Bellamy, the real one, she sees him at eighteen, broad and still broadening, already handsome with the promise of becoming moreso.

Which means that when he thinks of her, he sees a skinny fifteen-year-old fresh out of the convent. She's gotten better, she thinks, and she hopes he won't be disappointed, but--he probably doesn't think of her like that at all, and he probably never will. 

So she shouldn't be wondering about it either.

"Uh huh," says Raven, unconvinced. "Well, I'll miss having you in the group, but we come through Corus pretty often. It probably won't be six years before I see you again."

Clarke smiles. "I doubt it. But I'll miss you too."

The twelfth drops her off in Corus a week early, leaving Clarke more time than she'd like to worry about seeing Bellamy again. Not that she can't keep busy--there's more than enough to do--but all her spare moments are wondering about him. Part of her isn't even sure she'll recognize him, it's been so long.

But they still write. It's not as if he's a stranger. 

She's in her quarters in the palace looking through Nyko's notes when someone knocks on her door, and she's halfway to standing when her heart actually stops for a second because there he is, instantly recognizable as the first boy she met in Corus, the one who signed her up for the Riders, just older and firmer, bearded, so handsome she aches with it.

"Hey," he says, smile crooked, and she feels her own smile growing.

"Hey, Bellamy."

For a long moment, all they do is stare at each other, and then he laughs, this short, disbelieving sound, so familiar. "Fuck, it's so good to see you."

It's easy, then--Clarke's all the way out of her chair and crossing the room to his arms, hugging him tight. His scent is still familiar after all these years, warm and earthy, one she's caught from time to time on other people and always wants to follow. His arms are strong and his chest solid, and he hugs her like he never wants to let her go.

"You too," she says. "I can't believe it's been six years."

"You were the one who skipped midwinter in Corus."

She can't help grinning; he's been keeping track too. "Well, you didn't come on the grand progress."

"I was working, not--"

"I was visiting my mother!"

He pulls away to smile at her, and she gets caught up in just looking at him. With the beard, his freckles don't seem quite as prominent, but that makes it easier to get drawn into trying to count them, trying to spot every one.

At least he doesn't seem to notice. "What are you working on?" he asks, and that shakes her out of it.

"Lessons. I asked Nyko if he had anything I could use, but it's all the same old stuff I learned. I think it's mostly useless for us." She pauses, considers him. "You never really told me much about how you ended up getting brought on as the new training master."

"I didn't, and I'm starving. Do you want to go to the mess and I'll fill you in?"

Walking with him to the Riders' mess is the strangest kind of familiar, something she's done dozens of times but hasn't done for so long that it feels brand new. She can't stop stealing glances at him out of the corner of her eye, can't get enough of just seeing him, being in the same space again.

"They actually wanted me to do it because of what I was doing when I met you," he explains, with a smile. "I was familiar with the training process and I had some, uh--feedback."

"You thought they could be doing better."

"More training in Corus and less on the ground would be good for everyone. And I know we both benefited from working more with the Riders apart from our groups. So when I made my suggestions for new training protocols, they thought it would be easier if I just did it myself."

"And if I helped."

"If you'd suggested someone else, I would have asked them instead. But you had been complaining about how your new mage didn't know anything that was actually useful in the field, so--"

"Knights and Riders have different skills," she says, scowling. "We shouldn't just be training like we're going to be knights."

"You don't have to tell me, I got the letters. Do you have any ideas for curriculum yet?"

Falling back into their old pattern is easy, almost _too_ easy, considering how little time they had before to set an old pattern. It was a handful of months of her life, all told, but it already feels more familiar than six years in the Riders. Part of that, of course, is routine, plain and simple. Routine is a luxury for a rider in the field; even when they have a long-term assignment, it's because there's something to be doing, and that's never predictable. Living in the palace and doing the same things every day was always going to be different from life on the road, but it's not just that. Bellamy has been her constant this whole time, even with all the distance between them, and now that the distance has closed, it feels as if her life has fallen back into place.

Wells thinks it's hilarious.

"You know you haven't seen _me_ for a long time either, don't you?" he says. "You don't act like being with me is coming home after all these years."

"You're a knight, it's different. You aren't even going to be here for long."

He shrugs. "You can tell yourself that, but you forget I'm the one seeing the two of you together. I've never seen you like that with anyone. You actually relax around him. You can be yourself."

"I'm myself with plenty of people."

He watches her in that way only Wells can, the way that makes her feel five years old again and caught out for lying. Bellamy might be her best friend these days, but Wells is still her oldest, the one who can see through her. "Maybe you're just your best self with him."

"Getting engaged made you romantic."

"I'm always romantic! But I'd like to see you settled and happy too," he says, sobering. "And you're happy with him."

"If I married, I'd have to leave the Riders," she points out. 

"Even as a trainer? The Queen started it, and she's married."

"Royals are always exceptions," she says. "You know that."

"So don't marry him. Your mother's already disappointed in you, it's not like settling with a man you haven't married would make it much worse."

"Comforting." She sighs. "I just don't know what to do with him around all the time. It's almost too much of a good thing. I got used to regular letters, and now--"

"Only you would be upset that you get to spend more time with your favorite people. More Bellamy, more me, and you're worried about it. Just enjoy it while it lasts, Clarke. And see if he wants to be your sweetheart," he adds. "I _am_ getting romantic, now that I'm engaged."

Clarke's over denying, at least to herself, that she wants that. But there are three ways that desire could play out--she tells him and he feels the same, she tells him and he doesn't, and she never tells him and they go on as they are--and her never telling him is by far the safest, easiest way to proceed.

Not that _safe and easy_ has ever defined her life. But she's learned enough to know she needs to protect her heart.

"Maybe we'll be forced to share a bedroll on our trip," she says. "That would be romantic."

"Very romantic. How long will you be gone?"

"A few months," she says, stomach churning with nerves, mostly good ones. "I'm still not sure it's a good idea."

"Because you'll miss your routine?"

"Because I think we'll get run out of town."

Wells shrugs. "Tortall is changing. You're helping."

The autumn tour of the kingdom was Clarke's idea, although Bellamy inspired her. The Riders are still a small group, but it's in part because they're so new, still largely unknown. The army and the knights don't really need to recruit; everyone knows if they're nobles they can be knights, and if they're not they can be soldiers. The Riders often don't figure into the equation.

Clarke suggested using the autumn season, when training is done and they're waiting for spring, to do a tour, the two of them and any rider groups who are near enough to their stops to join, to answer questions and help out recruits who want to join but don't know how or can't get to Corus on their own. It's a smart plan, if she does say so herself, and they have the full support of the Riders and of the crown.

But it's also months on the road with Bellamy, which might be too much for her to deal with. Her safe, easy routine might not survive it.

"We're making the world a better place," she tells Wells, with a smile. "What could be more romantic than that?"

*

"Did you ever hear from the convent?" Bellamy asks.

It's not a question Clarke was expecting ever, let alone at the eating house after their first successful day of Rider recruitment. They're celebrating, in theory, talking about what to do next, and the convent is far from her mind now that it takes her a few seconds just to figure out what he's asking.

"After I left?"

"Yeah."

"I think they wrote to my mother, not to me. She dealt with it. Why?"

He drums his fingers on the table. "Do you think they'd let us recruit there?"

It takes her a second. "You want to recruit at the _convent_?"

"Why not?" He smirks. "They already gave us one good Rider."

Clarke bites the corner of her mouth on her smile. "I don't think they wanted to."

"But it's a real question," he says, sobering. "You don't think there are other girls at the convent who might want to join up?"

"There are, but I'm not sure we can go there and tell them to run away from the convent."

"You're still one of the only nobles we have in our ranks," he says, thoughtful. "Which makes sense, nobles have a lot more options than the rest of us do. But I think we could be missing some noblewomen who would be good fits, and I don't know how to reach out to them. I wouldn't want to lose on the next Lady Clarke of Griffin's Reach."

Clarke's heart swells. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

He watches her, expression still thoughtful, a scrutiny intense enough that Clarke wants to shrink away. But she's no coward; she meets him head on, waiting for him to say what he wants to say.

"So, you're not on good terms with anyone on the inside? No one we could ask for help?"

"None of the sisters who were there when I was liked me much. But there could be new ones." She worries her lip. "Niylah may still be there."

"Niylah?"

"The first girl I ever kissed. She thought if she stayed in the convent, it would be a good way to not marry and find someone else who shared her--inclinations."

He nods, understanding. It had been an awkward series of letters that had helped the two of them realize they both found gender to be an unimportant part of attraction, but she's grateful for it now. She can just be honest with him.

"Sounds like someone who might be sympathetic to noblewomen who'd like another career path," he says, and Clarke smiles.

"I don't know if she's actually still there, but I could reach out."

"You don't keep in touch?" he asks. "She was your first love."

"My first kiss, not my first love. Not that I talk to Finn or Lexa much either. You're the only person I've ever managed to keep in touch with with letters."

He ducks his head, smiling. "Still worth a try, right?"

"Worth a try."

She writes to the convent that night, directed to Niylah, in the hopes that she's there, and they've got a response back in a week. As Clarke hoped, Niylah has remained, and while she admits that Clarke and Bellamy coming to speak would be frowned upon, she shares that the girls aged thirteen and up are allowed to go into the town on the second Saturday of every month, and if they happened to come on that day, no one would stop the girls from talking to them there.

They were already planning to stop in the area, and adding that town on that day is an easy adjustment, at least in terms of their schedule.

Clarke is having more trouble, though.

"I don't know what to tell them," she admits.

"Do you have to tell them something different?" Bellamy asks, with a confused cock of his head. "I thought our presentation was fine."

She sighs. "I could have done fine staying in my old life. It bothers me sometimes."

"Really?"

"My mother still tells me I could come home and marry."

"You are only twenty-one," Bellamy agrees. "Plenty of ladies marry later than that, when there's no rush. Do you want to?"

"No. But I could be good at it. I could have stayed at the convent until I was ready to take on a household and married, and I'd be good at it. It might be a better use of my skills."

"And I might be better off a tailor," he says. "My mother had me apprenticed to one."

"What made you join the Riders instead?"

"She died, and I realized I didn't have anyone else I was responsible for. I didn't need to support my mother or my sister, I could do whatever I wanted for the first time in my life."

"Maybe that's the problem," she says. "I still feel like I'm letting other people down, and encouraging other people to do the same."

"You're not letting anyone down, Clarke," he says, genuine. "You're still taking care of your people, and you can get married later, if you want. If your fief needs you, you'll help. But they don't, so--" He shrugs. "You're giving people options, not telling them what to do."

"And this is the best option for me." She smiles at him. "Do you want to marry?"

"In general?"

"You had that sweetheart in the third," she says, trying to be casual about it. "Echo?"

"That was years ago. I'm not pining away, dreaming of marrying her."

"But someone."

He's quiet for much longer than she was expecting, quiet for so long she starts to think he's not going to say anything. But then, finally, he lets out a breath. "Honestly? You're the only person I've ever thought about marrying. I had this fantasy where you'd need to find a husband to save your fief, and you'd ask me, or I'd volunteer."

"You'd have to leave the Riders," she says, the first thing that pops into her head.

His face twists in amusement. "I never said it was a realistic fantasy."

"Wells said I didn't have to marry you," she says, meeting his eyes carefully. "We could just be Riders together, and let the rumors fly."

"Yeah, I thought about that a lot too." He wets his lips. "That's why I wanted you for this. And that's part of why I wanted to come to the convent. I don't know what--I'd still be a Rider without you, but I don't know what my life would be like. I want to make sure we get all the Clarkes we can here."

"I'd just like you to have one," she says.

It takes him a second, but then he laughs, grins. "You're the only Clarke for me." He clears his throat. "I don't suppose you'd like to come take a look at my room?"

Wells will be insufferable, and Raven too. But there are worse things to have than smug friends, and few better things to have than someone you love who loves you too. And he must; he wouldn't be looking at her like that if he didn't.

She stands and offers him her hand, tugging him out of the booth. "I thought you'd never ask."

*

"Can noblewomen really join the Riders?"

The girl has big eyes and long black hair, and she's looking at Clarke like she's hungry, desperate. It's an expression she's seen plenty of times since the tour started, on all sorts of faces. But this is the first noble, and it makes her stomach flip.

"We can," she says. "I'm a noble."

"You are?"

"I was in this convent, before I joined the Riders."

"Why did you leave?"

The answer comes easily. "Because I thought this was the right place for me."

"And it is?"

Bellamy is to her left, a few yards away, surrounded by a gaggle of girls who are more interesting in talking to a handsome young man than they are in enlisting. They have another month of the tour before they'll be going back to Corus, and some small part of her is worried that this understanding between them will burst, that their bubble of happiness can't last.

And maybe it won't be just like this, sneaking into each other's rooms and stealing kisses when no one is around. But they'll find something just as good or better, of that she's sure. They'll train new recruits and bicker over the best way to do it, they'll go to meals together and stay up late, fall into bed together when they're done.

They'll be happy, and they'll be good. No matter what else happens.

"It is," Clarke tells her. "It's exactly where I belong."


End file.
